


intro to interpersonal communication

by lyricalprose (fairylights)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 09:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairylights/pseuds/lyricalprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she meets her roommate, she doesn’t do much more than the customary <i>hello-I-see-we’re-rooming-together-nice-to-meet-you</i> song and dance. Donna Noble seems nice enough, but Rose has her mind on other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	intro to interpersonal communication

Rose comes to uni with something to prove.

There isn’t a lot of room for bottle-blonde nineteen-year-olds from council estates in the academic world, no matter how much noise anyone makes about _opportunity_ and _advantage_ and _so bright, despite your circumstances_ – and Rose isn’t going to give anyone an excuse to overlook her, or pass her over.

So when she meets her roommate, she doesn’t do much more than the customary _hello-I-see-we’re-rooming-together-nice-to-meet-you_ song and dance. Donna Noble seems nice enough, but Rose has her mind on other things. She’s got tutorials to attend and papers to write and big musty libraries to get lost in, and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for anything else.

For the first bit of term, they don’t talk a whole lot, the way roommates who weren’t already friends often do. They fit together nicely in that casual, mates-on-the-surface sort of way, even if Rose does think that Donna prattles on about this Lance bloke she’s seeing a little too much. There’s sharing of towels and toiletries and hairdryers and idle chat over bad takeaway, but Rose’s mind is always half somewhere else – in a textbook, or halfway through writing a paragraph in her head, never quite all the way tuned in to what’s being said, to what’s going on.

Then Donna and Lance break up.

Rose can tell that something’s wrong before she even knows about Lance, though – because Donna is _quiet_. She moves around the room without any of her usual life, without any of the loud-but-not-obnoxious vigor that Rose hadn’t realized she’d miss until it was gone. In its place is a kind of subdued sadness that makes her seem _less_ , somehow – a light bulb on a dimmer switch, or a radio turned to a lower volume.

It makes Rose want to bash Lance Bennett’s face in.

She asks Donna what’s wrong, but the other girl only gets a few sentences into her explanation before Rose can’t take the low tones and downcast eyes any more, and she blurts out, “But Donna, you’re _brilliant."_

Rose is a little bit surprised by how strongly she _believes_ it, by how fiercely she’s come to care about this girl that she’s gotten to know in the in-between spaces, in the time between due dates and exams and all-nighters in the library. Her fingers dig into the cover of her textbook, nails leaving marks in the thin, laminated surface as she speaks. “And if Lance can’t see it, he’s a tosser, and you’re better off without him.”

Donna looks at her a bit dazedly, like she can’t quite believe all that just came out of Rose’s mouth. Then she gives her a small, grateful sort of smile, and sniffles, “yeah, _tosser_ sounds about right.”

And just like that, they’re laughing, and Rose’s textbook goes forgotten for a moment – a minute, an hour, all night – as they settle into a new pattern, one that feels like it might have been inevitable right from the very beginning.

And then, of course, one day she walks into the room and there’s this tall skinny bloke lounging on Donna’s bed, reading a physics textbook. He says _I’m the Doctor, Donna’s brother, so nice to finally meet you,_ and Rose knows she’s done for in a whole different way.


End file.
